Swamp Karma
by Brochelle
Summary: So this was what karma felt like.


Was this karma? He wasn't used to that. He didn't believe in it.

The pain was real, though. And that was because of the Witch, who had just grown tired of clawing out his insides and was now mumbling to herself. She was walking away, too; moving in that sort of slow, drunken saunter, with her claws covering her wretched face.

Or was she dead already? Was that her on the ground? Did he kill her?

Maybe the Witch was karma. Maybe he shouldn't have run away from the others. Then he wouldn't have run into the Witch.

Karma was a concept Nick wasn't familiar with at all. He didn't know how it worked. But the word felt right.

He tried to say it, but his jaw and his tongue wasn't working right. It felt like his mouth was filled with chilled molasses. It filled the grooves of his teeth and pressed up against the roof of his mouth and he fought to speak through it. He spoke.

The word rolled out of his mouth like he was spitting out mulch.

Nick tried sitting up. The pain on his chest was numb; he was in shock. That wouldn't last. He wasn't sure about the karma but he knew that he'd be feeling the burn in a matter of minutes.

He shouldn't have left the others.

His heels dug into the mud, forming rifts in the grass and the loam. Turning his head, he looked in the direction of where the others were. He'd heard the plane's alarm system ringing up until the Witch's screaming was all that existed. He'd heard gunshots and a Southern drawl. Then screaming. He had hoped in that instant that it was a Witch rather than Rochelle. It had been a half-hearted thought – would it have mattered either way? In the end it might have been Rochelle but he didn't expect the Witch at all.

Why did he run?

He thought the others had been right behind him. Coach had opened the emergency door and the instant the alarms pitched a fit Nick was sprinting across the wing, making a break for a dock across the swamp. He'd hit the water running and he now realized it had been other Infected behind him, not his people. The zombies scattered when he reached the dock. Even they had heard the Witch, and run.

But it was quiet now. No plane, no guns, no Witch. Just him and karma.

Nick made as though to sit up again. He propped himself up and his limbs shuddered under him, and then the pain grew too much and he hit the back of his head on the ground. The movement seemed to have reminded his brain of the situation. His chest started to burn from the Witch's cuts, white-hot and searing.

At least it was only his chest. At least it wasn't his legs.

Anger flushed through his thoughts. Years spent avoiding emotional connection with others, and suddenly he's stuck in the middle of some sort of dysfunctional family of zombie slayers, half of which couldn't shoot worth shit. Suddenly he's taking the brunt of the zombies so the others don't have to. Suddenly he's saving aspirin and gauze pads for the others rather than himself. Years of successful living and here he is, paying for a split second decision.

He should have left back in the hotel.

But even he knew, even in this moment of blinding and darkening pain, he knew that things wouldn't have been better if he had abandoned them. He would have been dead before he could leave the city.

Who was he fooling? 'Years of successful living'? There had been days when he couldn't even leave his home to get food, for fear of getting shot. He had gone on weeks living on beans and whatever shit had been left in the cabinets after his wife left him.

Maybe the zombie apocalypse had been the best thing for him.

Maybe that was karma too.

He didn't know.

The sky burned away at the corners as he stared up. His heart sped up as he panicked, as the blood on his chest became uncomfortably warm. This was it. He'd run away and this was karma. He was going to die because it was him who was the idiot. It wasn't trigger-happy Ellis or impatient Coach or Rochelle's goddawful aim with a shotgun. It was karma.

Blood pounded in his ears and his limbs start to tingle, going numb at his fingertips.

Saying it was karma would mean it wasn't his fault.

It wasn't his fault he ran away.

Water splashed, to his left. Nick pawed for his pistol and struggled to lift it, but his shoulder ached and he could hardly see through the pain anyway. Rolling over, he raised the pistol and aimed for his assailant.

He'd be damned if he died because of a goddamn zombie hillbilly.

"Whoa, boy. Gun down now," the zombie said.

The zombie sounded a lot like Rochelle.

A voice echoed behind her, far away. "Didja find him?" it said. Its voice dripped with a drawl that was all too familiar. And farther yet came a deeper voice, demanding that the other needed to find a safe house.

His arm gave out and the gun fell from his hand. With a huff, he rolled over again until he lay flat on the ground. His heartbeat had been reduced to a dull thud in the cavern of his chest and he tried to speak. Nothing but gurgles and nonsense and karma.

There was a hand on his shoulder, then on his back, lifting him up and resting him on something elevated. He pried his eyes open – what a trial to blink – and found his strained vision to be filled with a worried face.

"Oh no," Rochelle murmured. "Oh honey, what did you go and do?"

He couldn't be bothered to speak, so he blinked slowly.

"Ellis!" Rochelle cried. "I need your health kit, now. Anything you got!"

"Sure thing!" Ellis replied.

Nick closed his eyes.

Water splashed violently and someone gasped. Guns clattered against each other.

"Holy shit."

"I know."

"I mean. Holy shit, Rochelle."

He knew she was pursing her lips. "The health kit, Ellis. Now!"

Then the sound of gauze tape, and packets ripping open, and a bottle of pills shaking. His shirt was parted and gauze was applied to the wound. He was being lifted up somewhat, and then there was a sudden pressure across his chest as the gauze was wrapped under his suit jacket, completely around him.

"Go find Coach, Ellis."

Water sloshed.

"Can you walk, Nick? If I got you up on your feet could you walk?"

He didn't know if he had answered, but she was hefting him up. She was giving up a couple aspirin pills and after a while he could focus again, his thoughts jarred slightly by the pain and the nausea of being upright.

Rochelle put her arm around his waist and draped his arm over her shoulder. She moved forward and he stumbled with her. There was a hand on his, squeezing the bloodied flesh tightly.

He tried speaking again, but it was mere noises.

"Come on. We gotta get you somewhere safe, alright?"

Ahead of them was the safe house, the light within a blessed reward of civilization in the wild swamp. He noticed the sun coming up over the horizon and how the road ended in a massive, barbed fence.

They struggled together toward the safe house.

"Rochelle!" It was Coach, close. "You got 'im? I can take him if-"

She was hurt too, Nick realized. It was in the way she replied to Coach – words brief and tightened by pain – that made it so evident.

The safe house was so close. He could walk. He would do that.

Coach and Ellis ran ahead of them and disappeared into the light. A horde's roar rang through the swamp and Nick's chest twinged with pain.

"We thought we lost you," Rochelle managed. "We doubled back, thinking you'd been carried off by a Charger or something. Didn't hear you. Thought you were dead."

They stepped onto the porch. It was a single step but it might as well have been an attempt to climb a mountain for them; they nearly collapsed in the threshold.

"We didn't leave you, ok?" she said.

The door slammed shut and Rochelle guided him into one of the rooms, letting him fall onto the single mattress there. It was a piece of shitty furniture but it was better than the swamp. Better than karma, even.

Rochelle called for a light in the room and Ellis walked in, holding his sniper's rifle. He turned on the flashlight taped to the bottom and angled it down on him while Rochelle reached for a medical kit.

"I'm not about to let you fall, baby."

Karma was all right, Nick thought.


End file.
